“I'm no preacher but I can tell you this-the lives that people lead are driving them crazy and their insanity comes out in the way they drive.”
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Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bukowski was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted home city of Los Angeles. Bukowski's work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work.
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culture · American writer (1920–1994) · actor · writer · screenwriter · poet · novelist · journalist · author · columnist · autobiographer · diarist · also Charles Bukowski, Henry Charles Bukowski, Buk, Bukowski
Born 16 August 1920 · Died 9 March 1994 · Q76409
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2026· 7 entries
“Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; it takes a wise man to make it without working.”
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“They wouldn't fire me. Even the salesmen liked me. They were robbing the boss out the back door but I didn't say anything. That was their little game. It didn't interest me. I wasn't much of a petty thief. I wanted the whole world or nothing.”
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“WHAT'S WRONG WITH ASSHOLES, BABY? YOU'VE GOT AN ASSHOLE, I'VE GOT AN ASSHOLE! YOU GO TO THE STORE AND BUY A PORTERHOUSE STEAK, THAT HAD AN ASSHOLE! ASSHOLES COVER THE EARTH! IN A WAY TREES HAVE ASSHOLES BUT YOU CAN'T FIND THEM, THEY JUST DROP THEIR LEAVES. YOUR ASSHOLE, MY ASSHOLE, THE WORLD IS FULL OF BILLIONS OF ASSHOLES. THE PRESIDENT HAS AN ASSHOLE, THE CARWASH BOY HAS AN ASSHOLE, THE JUDGE AND THE MURDERER HAVE ASSHOLES . . . EVEN THE PURPLE STICKINPIN HAS AN ASSHOLE!”
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“Fay had a spot of blood on the left side of her mouth and I took a wet cloth and wiped it off. Women were meant to suffer; no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love.”
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“People don't need love. What they need is success in one form or another. It can be love but it needn't be.”
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The Detroit-area post-punk band Funderbird titled their first album and title track “Let It Kill You,” inspired by Bukowski’s “Find what you love and let it kill you
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2013· 2 entries
And was partially shot in Oxford Square, a historic neighborhood of Los Angeles
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Actor James Franco directed a film simply titled Bukowski, with Josh Peck playing the writer
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2010· 1 entry
The unedited versions of both The Last Straw and Riot were released as One Tough Mother on DVD
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1994· 7 entries
Died 1994-03-09.
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In San Pedro, aged 73, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp
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“Às vezes, me sinto como se estivéssemos todos presos num filme. Sabemos nossas falas, onde caminhar, como atuar, só que não há uma câmera. No entanto, não conseguimos sair do filme. E é um filme ruim.”
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“Eu gostava do lugar, tinha grandes árvores que davam sombra, e desde que algumas pessoas haviam me dito que eu era feio, sempre preferia a sombra ao sol, a escuridão à luz.”
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“A diferença entre uma democracia e uma ditadura consiste em que numa democracia se pode votar antes de obedecer ás ordens.”
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“It's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well.”
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“What a weary time those years were -- to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability”
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1987· 1 entry
Is a semi-autobiographical film written by Bukowski and starring Mickey Rourke as Henry Chinaski, who represents Bukowski, and Faye Dunaway as his lover Wanda Wilcox
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1986· 1 entry
“Beasts Bounding Through Time”
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1976· 1 entry
Bukowski met Linda Lee Beighle, a health food restaurant owner, rock-and-roll groupie, aspiring actress, heiress to a small Philadelphia "Main Line" fortune and devotee of Meher Baba
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1975· 2 entries
Signed and illustrated over 100 copies of his poem "Winter," published by No Mountains Poetry Project
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“I squeezed Fay’s hand, kissed her on the forehead. She closed her eyes and seemed to sleep then. She was not a young woman. Maybe she hadn’t saved the world but she had made a major improvement. Ring one up for Fay.”
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1972· 1 entry
Joe Wolberg, who was the manager of City Lights Books in San Francisco, rented a hall and paid Bukowski to read his poems
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1969· 4 entries
Fox published the first critical study of Bukowski in The North American Review, and mentioned his attitude toward women: "When women are around, he has to play Man
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Bukowski and Neeli Cherkovski launched their own short-lived mimeographed literary magazine, Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns
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Bukowski accepted an offer from Black Sparrow Press publisher John Martin and quit his post office job to dedicate himself to full-time writing
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The column was picked up by the Los Angeles Free Press as well as the hippie underground paper NOLA Express in New Orleans
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1967· 1 entry
Bukowski wrote the column Notes of a Dirty Old Man for Los Angeles' Open City, an underground newspaper
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1964· 1 entry
A daughter, Marina Louise Bukowski, was born to Bukowski and his live-in girlfriend Frances Smith
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1962· 2 entries
On radio station KPFK in Los Angeles and increasing in frequency through the 1970s
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Was distraught over the death of Jane Cooney Baker, his first serious girlfriend
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1944· 1 entry
With the war ongoing, Bukowski was arrested by FBI agents in Philadelphia, where he lived at the time, on suspicion of draft evasion
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1939· 1 entry
Bukowski attended Los Angeles City College for two years, taking courses in art, journalism, and literature, before quitting at the start of World War II
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1930· 1 entry
“s acquiescence, his father was frequently abusive, both physically and mentally, beating his son for the smallest imagined offense. He later told an interviewer that his father beat him with a razor strop three times a week from the ages of six to 11 years. He says that it helped his writing, as he came to understand undeserved pain. Bukowski spoke English with a strong German accent and was taunted by his childhood playmates with the epithet”
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1923· 1 entry
Sailed from Bremerhaven to Baltimore, Maryland, where they settled
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1920· 2 entries
As Heinrich Karl Bukowski in Andernach, Prussia, Weimar Germany
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Born 1920-08-16.
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1895· 1 entry
His father was Heinrich (Henry) Bukowski (1895–1958), an American of German descent who had served in the U.S.
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